


thick as thieves

by celestialtrans



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Odyssey Verse, Slow Burn, call it more like uneasy allies to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 23:30:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialtrans/pseuds/celestialtrans
Summary: As far as he’s concerned, they’re allies on a good day. When they’ve got a lead and Kayn is busy killing whoever is actively shooting at him, he thinks they might be on the same side. They’re not teammates and they’re certainly not friends.
Relationships: Ezreal/Shieda Kayn
Kudos: 23





	thick as thieves

**Author's Note:**

> two bros chillin in a spaceship 2 feet apart cuz theyre repressed
> 
> disclaimer in this verse kayn and sona are siblings im FIRMLY disregarding almost everything canon in the odyssey verse. if thats not ur thing & will freak u out sincere apologies bro :(
> 
> titles ripped from shinedowns song
> 
> unbeta'd

Days come and go, bleeding by near imperceptibly in the darkness of the outer ring. Light hardly touches so far into the system, certainly not enough to warm the freezing planets beyond the remains of the supernova of millennia long-passed. It’s still warm in the ship, thankfully, but he wouldn’t say it reaches into figurative.

Two systems previous, they’d gotten a hit on the map. Nothing more than a blip, faint and gone in a blink, but it had been something and it was infinitely better than the awful silence stretching between them now. There’s not much Ezreal can say by way of comfort—what could he say? “Hey, sorry about your sister, man. She’s probably in the same galaxy if their ship is slow.”—but he’s half tempted now, if only to see his reaction.

If he didn’t know better, he might think Kayn is sleeping. One of his legs is stretched out, the other lolling into an easy sprawl, he hasn’t opened his eye in a few hours and his breaths are even. Honestly, it’s probably the closest he’s come to sleep in the past month.

Ezreal’s heel slides a little further up the dash as he sinks into his seat, a long exhale escaping him. He digs his knuckles into his temple, pressing in slow intervals as he stares at the radar’s fruitless sweeps and the wandering satellites passing them by. Gooseflesh prickles at the nape of Kayn’s neck. 

It’s a bad idea.

As far as he’s concerned, they’re allies on a good day. When they’ve got a lead and Kayn is busy killing whoever is actively shooting at him, he thinks they might be on the same side. They’re not teammates and they’re certainly not friends.

He loosens the fastener on his wrist. Kayn’s eye flashes open, darting over to the source of the noise, his metal hand flexes sporadically against his thigh and the scythe resting by his side glows briefly. Blue rings twist where his other eye might be and he looks up sharply to meet Ezreal’s steady gaze.

Two, three, four, he unclasps the gauntlet, squeezes his eyes closed and clenches his jaw when the needles retract from each port in his forearm with a soft hiss. Metal slides over the talisman, blanketing the light spilling from it, and the handguard closes, returning to stasis as he leans slightly to set it down. Kayn watches him, silence unbroken and ever-unreadable, but his hand relaxes. 

He’s not sure if he’d call it a polite stare, but something in Kayn’s expression shifts when he sees the way Ezreal cautiously rubs his thumb around the edge of each closed port. The skin is purpling, bruised and angry, and frankly hurts like hell.

When the quiet drifts a little too long, he risks another glance. Kayn’s eye is closed again.

══════════════════

Sona’s captors reveal themselves in the form of a video log, shakily filmed by a redheaded pilot and cast aside by the appointed captain of the ragtag group. Names and faces are a small victory, a bounty to post at each and every stop, but finding the camera was an accident. Spewed from the guts of the razor-toothed creature lurking in the nearby celestial belt.

It’s a good and a bad sign. The timestamps, adjusted to the local star system, suggest that they’d only missed the team by a few hours. It also suggests that they could have gone anywhere in those few hours, any chance of a trail gone with the video’s tail end showing the ship vanishing as it leapt to travel. 

Ezreal leans back in his seat, exhaling quietly.

“We have to get rid of that. The pilot will come looking for it sooner or later,” he says.

Still silent, Kayn taps at the interface a couple of times to catch a clearer frame of the captain. He’s human, to some extent, with long, pale hair and a shallow scar across the bridge of his nose, but unrecognizable to Ezreal. Something about the way Kayn studies the screen makes him think he might not be able to say the same.

The video log resumes and he manages to suppress his start at the burst of sound. Green flashes across the display, marking the path of the captain’s sword as he tears through the lifeless automaton and its limbs clatter to the ground.

“I agree,” Kayn murmurs.

══════════════════

Ezreal supposes there’s something to be said about irony when, not two days later, the captain nearly cleaves him in half.

On any other day, he’s all for theatrics, really, but he only wishes there was even a touch of exaggeration to the words now. The sword had gone through the gauntlet without resistance, finally stopping halfway through Ezreal’s middle. Whatever the blade’s made of cauterizes it in a blink and truthfully, Ezreal can’t decide if it’s better or worse than bleeding out.

Silver lining, it doesn’t hurt when he hits the ground and a rock gets nicely acquainted with the back of his head. The captain’s heel digs into his chest, just below his sternum, and he flips the blade back to his dominant hand before raising it high. His eyes flare gold shadowed from the daylight, a sharp exhale punctuates the force with which he brings the sword down--

Blood splatters over Ezreal's face. He can only watch, hardly breathing against the weight on his lungs, as the captain grasps futilely at the scythe buried deep in his collar. His sword hisses as it hits the ground, purple and red smears burning from its surface, and nearly all of his arm follows close behind it. For a moment, the pressure on his chest turns unbearable—the captain pitches forward, punching a harsh wheeze from Ezreal—only for his heel to slip as he falls.

He manages to bring up what’s left of his arm in time for the captain’s shoulder to slam into it, everything dead weight and skin slick with blood. Turning his face away, Ezreal heaves for breath, strain turning him unsteady as he struggles to shift the captain off his side. He rolls lifelessly to the stained dirt, eyes staring blank into the red sun glaring down on the three of them. The ringing in his ears quiets, and he hears the gunfire.

The world spins as he's hauled to his feet and his vision goes dark for a second. Between the scent of his own burned flesh and the mess of blood and bone covering his side, his thrown balance, and the suffocating heat, he’s sure he's going to be sick. He gags, dissolving into wet-sounding coughs, but manages to hold back the bile when he finally registers the body flush against his. 

He squeezes Kayn’s shoulder, nails catching in the tangled mess of his hair, and the rush of clarity that hits him is almost laughable.

Almost, because the pilot is still shooting at them and her aim isn’t diminishing with the distance they’re gaining as Kayn drags him to the ship. He can hear the terrified spikes of Sona’s instrument as she tries to put herself in the pilot’s line of fire and force a stop. Not fast enough—Ezreal grits his teeth against a sob—a bullet catches him in the calf, and another in the knee. With stunning precision, he can feel the joint give out as it shatters.

Kayn pulls him hard as he threatens to collapse. He knocks his forearm to the back of Ezreal’s good knee and another dizzying wave of vertigo hits him, center of gravity thrown as he’s lifted. Metal digs into the wound and the last thing he hears is the pilot’s grief-ridden screams over the pounding of Kayn's heart.

**Author's Note:**

> cya in chapter 2 folks
> 
> do not leave me constructive criticism. do not post my works to fic recommendation lists or blogs. do not repost or share my works on other sites.


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